The Philippines continues to lag behind its neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) with regard to spending portions of its gross domestic product (GDP) for education.
In his presentation during the Senate budget hearing, Tirso A. Ronquillo, Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (Pasuc) president, said only 3.4 percent of the country’s total GDP are allocated for education funding.
It came behind Lao PDR, Thailand and Brunei Darussalam, which spent 4.2 percent, 4.1 percent, and 3.8 percent of their respective GDPs.
The Asean countries with the highest spending for education in terms of GDP share are Vietnam with 6.3 percent and Malaysia, 6.1 percent.
Ronquillo noted the funding woes are even made worse for state universities and colleges (SUC) since they usually only get 11 percent of the government education budget.
He said this makes it increasingly challenging for the 1.3 million students to get quality education from the 111 SUCs nationwide.
Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman J. Prospero E. de Vera said this is also the same problem for them since they will only be getting P40 billion from their 2020 National Expenditure Program, or P11 billion short of their request.
He reiterated that due to CHED’s funding shortage, it would not be able to provide scholarships to almost 2,000 medical student scholars and hundreds of scholar teachers, who are taking their masteral or postdoctoral degrees.
Sen. Pia S. Cayetano, who presided over the budget hearing, expressed concern over this low government spending for education, which, she said, could affect the country’s economic competitiveness.
“The recommendation of the UN [United Nations] is 6 percent [of the GDP budget for education]. And we are only spending 3.9 percent, almost 4 percent. Laos and Vietnam are spending higher,” Cayetano told reporters in an interview.
“We should not be complacent. We need to invest in the education sector,” she added.
She committed to address the funding woes of CHED, as well as SUCs for next year.
Cayetano said she is eyeing the unused fund of CHED in 2018 and 2019 as a source of its fund for next year.
She did admit, however, that they might not completely able to grant the P11-billion unobligated budget request of CHED.
“We expect to only get P8 billion from its [CHED] unobligated funds,” Cayetano said.